Learning to Connect!

Remember the teacher in Peanuts cartoons? She of the trombone voice? Wahwahwahwah. Her lectures left some sleepy and others bewildered.

Consider the complexity of the teacher-student connection: the thought in the teacher’s brain, turned into words, then heard and interpreted by students. Is it any wonder Peppermint Patty was snoozing and Charlie Brown was bamboozled?

Add a horse to this equation. The horse receives cues from the rider (and sometimes the instructor) and may or may not understand the rider’s intentions. It’s a massive spaghetti plate of interpretation, full of possibilities and pitfalls. No wonder we struggle to improve and connect as a horse-rider pair!

At BestHorsePractices and NickerNews, we’re assembling a group of articles and features dedicated to sorting through the missed and made connections. Our Learning to Connect features will help you with features from guest columnists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds.